Obama Plans Web Tools For Lobbying and Mid-Term Races

As I had hoped, in addition to the volunteer organizing site, the Obama administration will use its web presence as a tool to lobby Congress on important issues and to affect the mid-term elections:

Obama aides and allies are preparing a major expansion of the White House communications operation, enabling them to reach out directly to the supporters they have collected over 21 months without having to go through the mainstream media. ...

The nucleus of that effort is an e-mail database of more than 10 million supporters. ... At least 3.1 million people on the list donated money to Obama. ...

After Obama declared victory, his campaign sent a text message announcing that his supporters hadn't heard the last from the president-elect. Obama conveyed a similar message to his staff in a campaignwide conference call Wednesday, signaling that his election was the beginning, and not the culmination, of a political movement.

If this is successful, it really will change the face of politics. Organizations like MoveOn have been playing in this space for over four years, and finally the White House is going to catch up. Liberal web-based groups are going to have to re-think their strategies for fundraising and gaining the attention of people on their email list. How do you succeed as an agent of change when the people wielding power offer supporters the chance to work with them directly?

Also, the Democrats are years ahead of what the Republicans have in online organization. If you're a Republican, how do you energize and motivate your supporters, when they are characterized by their disdain for volunteering, disinterest in informing themselves about policy, and inability to be stirred by anything except hate and fear? A GOP equivalent to myBO would read like RedState on crack, which is not going to help.

Of course, Obama has to decide how much user content his site will allow, which is a key factor in its success:

Accordingly, the president-elect's http://www.change.gov transition Web site features a blog and a suggestion form, signaling the kinds of direct and instantaneous interaction that the Obama administration will encourage, perhaps with an eye toward turning its following into the biggest special-interest group in Washington.

It's not really a blog - there are no comments. A suggestion form? How 20th century. Reading press releases in blog format is not the change we seek. The important part would be something like myBO, where supporters can communicate with each other and organize themselves. A top-down approach is not going to keep people engaged, because it disempowers them and prevents them from getting excited about working with others like themselves.

If they manage to leave the crucial element of self-organizing in place, this could be possible:

Once Obama is sworn in, those backers may be summoned to push reluctant members of Congress to support legislation, to offer feedback on initiatives and to enlist in administration-supported causes in local communities. Obama would also be positioned to ask his supporters to back his favored candidates with fundraising and turnout support in the 2010 midterm elections.

I was also wondering about this:

The process is just beginning, and many questions remain unanswered. The simplest approach might be to convert the campaign organization into an incarnation aimed at 2012 and an anticipated run for reelection, but some inside the Obama team are concerned about appearing too overtly political. Another course could be to create a nonprofit organization. Obama officials said all options would be examined over the coming weeks.

So, they want to keep the tool, but they may need to keep it at arm's length. It would be an exciting change if the Obama administration took ownership of the community organizing site and allowed people to use it the same way they did during the campaign. I don't hold out a lot of hope for such a move, because the media would use the opportunity to make up controversies every time some nut put up a crazy blog post and the right would spend half its time trying to monkey-wrench the thing.

Over the course of the campaign, Obama's e-mail list gathered not only names and contact information, but also details about issues important to those supporters.

In past years, such lists were considered useful tools for political campaigns but not particularly helpful for governing. But Peter Greenberger, manager of political advertising for Google, said such information could be a boon for Obama in building public support for policy proposals.

The White House could "geo-target" ads so they appear online in congressional districts where members remain undecided. Obama could use Internet ads to solicit signatures for petitions, or he could place display and video ads contextually -- so they would appear on the screen next to news coverage of his proposals.

This last bit about web advertisements is coming from Google, which would benefit from such an ad campaign, but it still is a very interesting idea. Hey Barack! I know a few blogs that are very influential with a tiny number of people. 

All in all, a good and exciting possibility from the incoming administration. I guess we'll have to wait to see what develops during the transition.

Comments

[cozmo]

Isnt it ironic, how the Republicans and their right wing allies once dominated the internet political landscape, and now it is becoming their undoing ?

[richardbell]

Moving Obama's campaign email list inside the executive branch is not the best way to use this list. If the purpose of using the list is political, then bringing the list inside the executive branch, where taxpayer funds are paying for its use and maintenance, exposes the use of the list to all kinds of attacks by outsiders. It's always helpful to do a little thought experiment in such situations: how would progressives have felt if Bush had been using White House resources to do blast emails to a list of 10 million conservatives asking them to lobby for some Bush initiative?

Obviously the President can use "the bully pulpit"--press conferences, speeches, etc--to build support for his programs. Who, for example, should pay for the expenses involved in flying the president to a fund-raising event? There is no question that if the president's only appearance on a trip was at a political fundraiser, then the president's campaign would have to pay the cost of the trip--which is why such trips always include events that can, with some tongue in cheek, be called nonpartisan, thereby forcing the government to pick up some, or most, of the cost of what is really a campaign trip.

Obama would be much smarter if he keeps his email list outside the government, where his supporters will not be encumbered with all the oversight, rules, and regulations that would apply to any White House-based operation.

This is not to say that the White House should not build email lists

[Richard Bell]

Moving Obama's campaign email list inside the executive branch is not the best way to use this list. If the purpose of using the list is political, then bringing the list inside the executive branch, where taxpayer funds are paying for its use and maintenance, exposes the use of the list to all kinds of attacks by outsiders. It's always helpful to do a little thought experiment in such situations: how would progressives have felt if Bush had been using White House resources to do blast emails to a list of 10 million conservatives asking them to lobby for some Bush initiative?

Obviously the President can use "the bully pulpit"--press conferences, speeches, etc--to build support for his programs. Who, for example, should pay for the expenses involved in flying the president to a fund-raising event? There is no question that if the president's only appearance on a trip was at a political fundraiser, then the president's campaign would have to pay the cost of the trip--which is why such trips always include events that can, with some tongue in cheek, be called nonpartisan, thereby forcing the government to pick up some, or most, of the cost of what is really a campaign trip.

Obama would be much smarter if he keeps his email list outside the government, where his political organization will not be encumbered with all the oversight, rules, and regulations that would apply to any White House-based operation.

This is not to say that the White House should not build email lists which could include information on issues that people cared about, or that the White House could not send information tailored to those interests to those people. But such emails should be focused on issues, not elections.

There is an ethical line in here, gray though it may be. Obama has positioned himself as someone who does not look to push to the limits of the ethical boundaries of politics. Keeping his overtly political emails out of the White House would preserve this ethical firewall.

[Mithras]

So, no one has given me a good answer so far, "ethically", legally or politically. Not to say that there is no good answer.

Let me take these in turn:

So now it's unethical to organize volunteers to help with specific policy initiatives? That's strange. I guess the idea is it's unfair to be effective. How 90s.

Legally, I dunno. Maybe there is a reason a tool created to help with a campaign can't be lent temporarily to a White House communications office. It's not that there is anything inherently partisan about a mailing list. If there is a good federal statute on this, I am still waiting to have it brought to my attention. (Because I am too lazy to look it up myself.)

Politically, would it be a loser? No, actually, the opposite. I think a President with an army of volunteers ready to work on distinct issues could be a real juggernaut. But it takes imagination and daring. Maybe that's what bothers people: "It's never been done before!" Well, now we're doing it. Next?